Acts 3

It is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

None like you, Lord God.

Hallelujah. Jesus prayed a prayer. He said, I wish above all things that you will be together. I am in him and him in you.

Hallelujah.

So Lord, we are saved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord.

You see what's happening. Oh, he is making the table table before you in the presence of your enemies. You are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Lord, we have a reason to thank you.

We have a reason to praise you. We have a reason to lift up our voice, oh Lord. We will not be silent as long as we have breath. We will bless it. We will praise. We will worship the Lord. So Heavenly Father, Lord, we've come together to We are thankful. We are declaring it with hope. We are declaring it with conviction.

I have a reason to thank the Lord.

I have a reason to lift up his name.

Lord, you said if you be lifted, that you will draw all men unto yourself.

That the name of the Lord is a strong tower.

The righteous run into it and they are saved. There is no other name that men shall be saved apart from the name of Jesus. That everybody that calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I call the Lord. He heard and he delivered me from all my illnesses. Lord, I cry on the name of Jesus. I cry, our Father. I cry, our Father. I cry, our Father. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. We cry, our Father, Lord, because if the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells inside of us, then we can't be silent. We can't be stagnant. We can't be ashamed. We can't be suppressed. We can't be depressed because the Jesus, that Jesus who they crucified, is alive and well inside of us. We can read the word that is sharper than every two-edged sword. Oh, there comes a thunderbolt in battle that separates soul and spirit. Lord God of Heaven, how wonderful it is to sit in your council. It's a privilege to join the 24 elders, to cast our crowns, to lift our hands, to bow down before the King of Kings and say, worthy, worthy, worthy. Lamb that was slain. You are holy, you are holy, you are holy. There is none like you. Who is like unto thee? Who is like unto thee? Glorious in holiness, fearful in praise, doing wonders. Hallelujah! Who is like the Lord? Who is like the Lord? Who is like the Lord? You are Rapha, you are Jireh, You are Jehovah Shekinah, Jehovah Nissi. Oh, you are everything that Lord God, the mighty man in battle, the host of Heaven's armies. I will be sealed and know, and know that you are the Lord. There is no other, there is no other God. Oh, glory be to God in the highest.

God, we trust and believe in you, Lord God.

Hallelujah. Lord, we will not be silent.

We will just bless your name, God.

We just got started. We will keep exalting your name. You are worthy. You are worthy, Lord. We worship above your pain, above your problems, above your debts, above your grades, above your career. Can you lift up the name of Jesus? The Bible says as far as the heavens stand, stand above the earth. That he is exalted as far as the heavens above and above the earth. You are exalted. We praise your name, Jesus. Hallelujah.

In you we find rest, oh God.

You are the source of our strength, Jesus.

Hallelujah. The strength of our life.

Thank you, Jesus.

In Jesus' name we have prayed.

Nothing is impossible.

Thank you, Jesus. Um, I want to challenge y'all with something.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Lord.

You know that we, we're not afraid of witches.

We're not. Thank you.

Let me tell you why. There was a man named Elijah on Mount Carmel, and the way that the Lord revealed it to me, he had a joint service with witches.

See, we afraid of them coming into our rooms.

Elijah was like, come here. He had a joint service with witches and the prophets of Baal.

He was like, we gonna do service together. I'm gonna call upon my God, you will call upon your God, and we'll see who stands at the end of the service.

Period.

You think Elijah was afraid? He said, no, no, I don't want to kick y'all out the church. I want y'all to get this smoke. He said, in fact, I'm gonna pour water on my altar.

And I think it was revealed in one of these sessions that we was in that the reason that he poured water, because Water was extremely scarce in that time.

So one, he was saying, I don't care about this water.

Two, it's not gonna stop my God from being God. So they had the joint service. Elijah stood by himself with his God. The prophets of Baal stood by themselves and their God. And by the end of it, we know whose God was really God. I'm saying this to say, by the end of this study, your God will reign.

Amen.

I don't care what you brought into this room, if it was the prophet of Baal, if it was depression, if it was anything that was counter to God's word. I'm not afraid of it being in this room.

Amen. I'm not.

So I want you to present all of it right now.

Amen.

Whatever you feel that is holding you, whatever, whatever you think it—

just, just put it on the table, and then we're gonna call upon our God and see what stands at the end of the day.

Amen.

Like, I just feel like there's a, there's a heaviness in here right now, and I can't get past it. So I want you to know how confident I am in my God about this situation. So right now, can we just begin to bless the name of God again and just pour out whatever that is on the altar? Just place it there in prayer right now. If you would—

if it was hard for you to get up out of bed this morning, you know, put that on the table, whatever it is, whatever it is. I don't care if it's an idol that you're trying to get over, an addiction that you are trying to get over.

I don't care if there's somebody speaking negativity into your life.

We are going to put it on the altar. We're going to put water on it. We're going to call upon our God and see what stands at the end of the day.

So Lord God, we call upon you, the God that answered by fire.

We call upon you right now, Lord, knowing that we are confident that when we come to you, when we come to you, that you are able that you hear, that you answer. So, Lord God, right now we put it all on the table. Every negative thought, every dark desire, every idol, every terrible habit. Father, we ask may be consumed by fire in the name of Jesus. Lord, we ask that you reign at the end of this. Cast our cares on you, O Lord. For you care for us, and we say thank you for victory.

For in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen. Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Um, we're going to get into Acts 3, and this is our third week of Harmony Nights. We're going to be concluding this at the end of March. And at the end of March, we're going to take a month off of studying and try to act out what we just read. So this is week 3. Week 1, um, just a slight recap. We learned about the promise, Jesus talking to his disciples. He told them to stay in the upper room and don't leave until you receive power. By Acts chapter 2, 120 of them are there 50 days after the day of Pentecost, after staying in the upper room for 10 days. And the promise came, and then the promise manifested itself with the reconciliation of the tongues that God scattered in Genesis at the Tower of Babel. And then with these new giftings, Peter preached the sermon, and he preached from Joel chapter 2. He also preached from the Book of Psalms. By the end of his sermon, scripture says that everybody there was cut to the heart, and he asked the question, what shall we do? And Peter and the apostles responded, repent and be baptized. You get to 242 and you see that the church grew They gave themselves to 4 things. What were those 4 things?

Prayer.

Prayer, that's one. Breaking bread.

Fellowship.

Fellowship. I'm hearing somebody with some confidence. Devotion.

Devotion to scripture?

No.

The apostles' teaching.

Did you just read that? When you said scripture, I was like, kind of, but like, it wasn't really scripture because They was teaching from scripture.

You know, you get like, you get 25%, which is an F, but it's not a zero.

So they gave themselves to those 4 things and they went from temple to temple, house to house, which, glory be to God, we just went.

Today we are in the living room. Shout out to Tony and Eric again for hosting us. This place is beautiful. So, um, church grows. Then we get to Acts chapter 3. In Acts chapter 3, um, there's a couple of ways that I want to do this. I kind of want to teach a little bit, um, and then I want to open up the rest of the, the book here. Um, so as we read through it, God will give his confirmation about how we're going to go with this. Um, and then we'll go, go from there. So we're in Acts chapter 3. It's only about 20, 26 verses, so we're going to read it all together and then, um, we will dive in. Father, as we enter into the word, may the word enter into us. May it take root in the name of Jesus. May it bear fruit in the name of Jesus. May we not just be hearers of this word but doers of it in the name of Jesus. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forevermore, until Christ comes. And the church said, amen. Acts chapter 3, verse 1. We're going to read to the end. Let's read it together in concert. 1, 2, 3, go. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, the 9th hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple. Which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of those who enter into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked alms. And Peter, with John, said, "Look on us." So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver and gold have I none." But what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. Immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. They read the news that Jesus had prayed and had set forth the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had just happened to him, and at how the lame man who was healed haled on to the gate of the temple. All the people ran together unto the beautiful porch which you saw Solomon greatly ornate, so was Peter sorry He turned to the people, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you come to praise the apostles, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified our servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate. Jesus was determined to let him go, but he denied the Holy One and Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know, that the faith which is taught through him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Now, brethren, I know that you did it ignorantly, but those things which God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that Christ should suffer, he has so fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and convert, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from Jesus Christ, who is both Lord and priest forever, hold the heavens and the sea until the time of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, the Father is God and the Lord is God. Hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. It shall be that every soul that is not for the prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, when he hath spoken, have likewise foretold these days. You are the children of the prophets, of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. Teaching you first that God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. May the Lord bless the reading of his holy word. Thank you, Lord. Can y'all just take a minute or two to Meditate, find some parts of it that leapt out to you that the Spirit just revealed by inspiration, observations, scriptures, and other parts of the Bible that came to mind. Just let this sit on your mind for a few minutes.

We'll give it 2 minutes.

30 more seconds. All right, amen, amen, amen. So it won't be, um, so I want to share something really quick because, and I wrote a post about it earlier. I wrote a little bit about prayer in the sub-study today. And verse 1 said, now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. Um, in this scripture you're going to see so many different rhythms that the apostles were keeping at this time, ones that we are still to keep to this day. The first one here is Peter and John were together. There's a togetherness that they did life with, and that togetherness is what we're supposed to continue. I think we live in a world right now where everybody wants to be like a solo Christian, and you just can't justify that in scripture. I tell people all the time, Jesus rode with 12. Why do you want to be by yourself? It doesn't make sense. It makes absolutely no sense. So even afterwards, even when you read all through our Acts, you will notice that every time somebody is sent, they're never sent by themselves because they're trying to model how Jesus taught them to do ministry, which was at the minimum two by two. So now you see a continuation of this with Peter and John going together two by two. Uh, the second thing that, uh, you notice here is that They were going to the temple.

Many people like to argue that the New Testament church didn't go to church.

Well, power came, revival happened, very next chapter, chapter 3, they were going to the temple. It's pretty clear. That means there's something— and they didn't say that they were going to the temple to convert people. They were going to pray, right? There are times where you see people in Acts in the temple, particularly Paul, reasoning with them, trying to get them to believe in Jesus. At this point, they were like, hey, we just received this power and it came by prayer, so it's only going to stay by prayer. So they went at what's called the hour of prayer, meaning that this is the time— and so I keep telling people like We're gonna build everybody up to be able to pray for at least an hour. Because all through our scripture, even in Matthew, when Jesus is at Gethsemane, he's going and he's pouring out his heart to God.

He come back, his disciples sleeping.

He asked his disciples, you can't even stay with me and keep watch for one hour? And I feel like there are many sleepy Christians right now that can't keep watch for one hour. It's a regimen. But the main point that I want to get here is, at least the revelation that God gave me about this scripture and about prayer is Peter is just doing what he saw Jesus did. Now, if you go to Matthew chapter 8, verse 14, you will see a moment in Peter's life that he probably would never forget. Ever in his life. And I believe he was using this same inspiration to now go do what he did in Acts chapter 3. 14, the Bible says, now when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying sick with a fever. So he touched her hand and the fever left her, and she arose and served them. I think I need to read that one more time very slowly. Now when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying sick with fever. So he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and served them.

This is the same thing that happened in Acts chapter 3.

So Peter had a lived experience of Jesus coming to heal him by touch. So now he goes to this temple, sees a man laying in front of it begging for alms, or basically charity.

Like, he's a panhandler.

And Peter is like, I don't have any money, because when Jesus sent them out, he told them, don't bring money. So I saw a pastor abuse this and said Peter was broke. I'm like, he was told not to take money when he went out. So he's out here with no money. And he looked at that man and he was just like, and I'm reading into the text here. He's probably thinking, hmm. I saw Jesus heal my mother-in-law, and now he said that that promise is going to be inside of me. I feel like he has so much conviction at this moment that what Jesus said will happen. So he is like, silver and gold I have none, but I have a reference. I have a name. I have experience. I've seen this happen before, and now that Holy Spirit is inside of me.

And then he brought that person to their attention. He said, look at me. That reminds me of what happened with Elijah and Elisha, right? And I feel like, man, many of us are probably not getting our miracle because we're not paying enough attention.

He's like, I know you, you asking for money, but I got something better.

When you go back to Matthew chapter 6, Jesus, when he was teaching to prayer, he made a juxtaposition with prayer and charity.

So the way that I read it is that prayer is charity. Prayer is probably the most charitable thing that you can do. So this person already has a heart posture that he's in need. He wants charity. He wants his life to be in a better situation, and he believes you in front of him can make his life better. This is platform for miracle. These are just the, the processes of like somebody being able to receive.

The Bible says if you will honor a prophet as a prophet, you'll receive a prophet's reward.

So now honor is being taught here. He's saying, hey, You honor me enough to listen to what I'm saying. I just told you I don't have money. That person immediately could have been like, you don't got nothing for me, you don't got no money, that's the only thing I'm asking for. So now you see the heart posture of both of them.

Peter is like, man, I want to give to you what God gave me, and this person is is in a situation of despair and brokenness, which is ripe ground for breakthrough. And he's just like, you don't got no money? All right, man, at least whatever you got to offer me, I'm willing to accept. Sometimes, like, we go out here and we try to minister to people. We say, can we pray for you? I don't want your prayer. Jesus said, whenever that happened, shake the dust off your boots and go. As much as you want to do something without their heart posture being aligned with the power of God, it would never happen. So now we see alignment. Now Peter, he reached out, he said, in the name of Jesus, rise up.

But he didn't just leave it at the prayer, he took action. Now, all right, somebody's here, he got a broken leg, you just prayed a prayer.

We know if you believe what you just prayed by the action you take right after.

We know if you believe what you just prayed for by what you do right after. You just pray that God is going to give you a job and you ain't seen no resumes. Well, we know you don't believe that prayer. I'm trying to like cultivate our mind to think about what just happened. This person has a broken leg and Peter's like, all right, get up.

Like, think about that.

This man's leg is broken and Peter's like, I know you're good, bro. And the other person had enough conviction too to stand up. You see how when faith on both sides come together They were already in the mood.

I'm about to go pray. They already had their heart posture. And we see this miracle, this healing, this breakthrough. And scripture says— remember a question we asked, I think last week— what needs to happen for the church to be in awe again? Enough conviction to know you just prayed for somebody and you're gonna follow up with that prayer. There was a guy in my church and he told me, he said, I don't got enough money to pay for tuition and school starts on Monday. He said, Pastor, can you pray for me?

I'm like, bet.

So we begin to pray and I said, when you're sitting in class on Monday, text me.

I'm like, when you're sitting in class on Monday, text me. You can't say that if you don't believe what you're praying.

Yeah.

Lo and behold, on Monday he sent me a message.

I'm in class.

It's like, do you, do you believe what you're praying for? Do you really?

Like, honestly, like, let's just take a moment. We're going to step through this in 3 parts. We're going to talk about the first 10 verses, from 11 to 17, and from 18 to the end. We're gonna break it in 3 parts and hear your inspiration. But like What the Lord is ministering to me right now is that there are not enough people believing in what they're praying for. And the only requirement for answered prayer is belief. How do you hold the tension of like believing in prayers but also having an open heart for the Lord possibly not doing that thing? I think we talked about this last week, right? Was it last week or two weeks ago?

Say it, okay, the Lord's gonna do this type thing.

Yeah, we talked about this when we were talking about Jesus praying, if it be possible for this cup to pass me, nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt. So I have an answer, but I would love to hear from the room. How do you hold the tension of having faith but also understanding that God's will will be done? Does that summarize your Good question.

It's a great question. Oluseun?

I personally have learned to just understand that God's will may not be what I want. It may not be what I am praying. And so just knowing that God always has my best interest in mind. He always knows what's best. He always knows what's ahead. I am sitting in the place of the unknown. And so I may want to believe something, I may believe something, and it still may not be what God— exactly what God wants. So for me, it's just become a matter of acceptance. Um, you know, at the end of the day, I'm gonna pray this, and at the same time, I want God's will to be done. I personally, I have learned to pray in a way where I don't, I don't ask for many, for many things like by name. I don't ask for many tangible things. I think young, hearing the story and learning the story of Solomon—

I was talking to my mom about this yesterday—

I just have learned to ask for the intangibles and everything else will follow, right? And so that's how I've learned to pray, right? And so even in the midst of needing very specific things, I actually tried not to pray for those specific things. I tried to pray that his will be done no matter what the circumstances is going to be. But it does take a level of understanding. It takes a level of trust and knowing, which is not the easiest thing to come to. And so we're human and we fall short in that all the time. But personally, what I've done is making it a habit, because one thing I don't want to do is pray against God's will. I don't want to be praying something that is not his will, because it's not going to come to pass anyway, because that's what the word says. So if we pray according to his will, then it's more likely, right? And we don't always know his will, so we leave his will in his hands. But one thing that we can do is pray scripture, find scripture for the situation. Pray through that scripture, meditate on that, and you're more than likely it's going to come out to be God's will. It may not be what you want, it may not, you know what I mean, but it'll come full circle and you'll realize that whatever God's will is was exactly what you needed in that situation.

Glory to God.

Amen.

To kind of piggyback off what she said, I would just say, looking at what he's done in the past because if you know he's brought you through something before, you know, no matter how small it is, you know that he can get you through or bless you with these things according to his will, according to the scriptures that you praying.

So like, that can be an encouragement.

Like she said, it may not look like, you know, it's gonna be something that comes through, right? The enemy is good for, you know, showing us, hey, this is not gonna be something that will happen, but you trust God because, hey, you said in your word all of these things, and I'm gonna stand on faith knowing that you did this for me in the past. Whatever it may be, you can do it now.

Yeah, um, I love what both of y'all said, and the part that I wanted to even more emphasize is just trusting in the promises of God that are in his word, because we know that God is a promise keeper. And so, like, my favorite Bible verse, I say it all the time, it's like Philippians 4 talks about don't worry about anything, pray about everything, tell God what you need, thank him for what he's done, then you will experience God's peace that passes all understanding.

It will keep your hearts and mind right.

And what that means to me is not that as you're not— the Bible tells us not to worry but to pray about everything, but it doesn't say that God will answer our prayers with everything that we're asking for. But it does say that we will experience peace, and that peace will keep us. And so I think with what you're talking about, that post-prayer attitude kind of matters. And when I'm, when I'm working the altar at my church, a lot of times we have a specific assignment. They come to us with a prayer request, we're going to pray that prayer request. And yes, there's an element of like, ultimately, Lord, let your will be done. But somebody's praying for— they have, like you said, that brother was asking you for help. He had a tuition emergency. And sometimes we are tasked to bring our specific cares before God and just give it to Him. And without knowing how the outcome will be, if our response shows an awareness of God's peace, I think that is more God-honoring and faith-based of a response. So the opposite of that is praying for something and then continuing to worry about it as if you had not just brought God into the situation. But that can be very easy to do because the fear is probably what drove you to prayer in the first place. And so the issue may still be very front and center in life, but trusting in what His word says and trusting that as you pray and you worry less, that His peace will keep you. And sometimes that's all we need. The situation may, it may not, but at least I know as I pray, What's promised is peace. And I think when people around us see that and they see peace on you, then it perks their attention and they're like, you're in the middle of a storm right now. What is that peace that I see on your face? And but that's what's promised to us. So we can pray with that level of confidence that like when this prayer is done, God is on the case.

I have peace now.

One thing that I also came to learn is that it says in the word that if we pray and we don't believe, we can't expect anything from God. That changed a lot for me, you know what I mean? That made me work on my trust, you know what I mean? And we go through a lot of things and we tend to project our circumstances with people onto God. And so trust It's a daily walk for me with God, for sure. You know what I mean? But just leaning into scriptures like that and bringing that before God and being like, this is what it said, this is how I'm feeling. You know what I mean? What's good? Can you help me? Can you teach me? One thing I've learned to pray as of late in the last couple years is to ask God to teach me things, coming before him humbly. Recognizing that I do not know. I don't know how to get through this. I don't know how to process this. I don't know the outcome. I don't know what's in front of me. Can you teach me how to get through this? Can you teach me how to pray through this? Can you teach me— we can't be sleeping on the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will teach you something.

And so utilize the Holy Spirit, you know what I mean, that's with you.

Yeah.

And Don't be afraid to ask to teach. In the world that we live in, a lot of times we are made to feel less than or feel weak when we ask questions, let alone when we're asking people to teach us things. It's a matter of pride, right? And pride is on the spectrum. So pride may not always look like you feeling like you were thinking that you know everything. It may look like you not feeling that you're capable of learning and knowing enough. And so when we keep that in mind, that also helps.

Thank you. And also too, I feel like we have to recognize that our life is not our own. And so when you go before God, your prayer life is not even your own. So the Bible talks about eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, nor hearts can comprehend what the Lord has for those that love him. So like, what we thinking about, what we want is nowhere near compared to what God has for us. And then I just think about Matthew 6:33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. So like, you can never go wrong with just praying the will of God and seeking God, because he'll fill your life with those perfect things. And then lastly, I also think about that scripture. It's my favorite scripture, Matthew 10:39. Where it talks about if you are seeking to find your own life, you're gonna lose it. But if you lose your life for God's sake, you will find it. And so you gotta surrender your prayer request to the Lord and just trust that, hey, I'm flawed, I don't know anything, you know everything, and just blindly follow him. And it's hard, but the more that you do it and the more that you see God's hand in your life, you'll begin to trust more. But that's where the faith is built.

Yeah, I feel like this will— this is kind of like off the tangent of everything that people have said, but one thing, kind of like how you were saying you don't focus as much on praying for the tangible thing and more the intangible, more what you can learn from God as a whole. I feel like another thing, when we started the, um, the morning prayers in, what, like last August?

Yeah.

Um, we went through Matthew.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and like just how they were taught to pray, and like you just said, how prayer is like an act of charity. And a lot is going on in everyone's life, but I feel like I found it since then. I'll try to pray for myself, but I don't even know what to pray for. So I've tried to— like, every time I try and I'm like, I don't even know what to ask for, I try to shift it to like praying for those in my life that I know are praying for something. And I'm like, you know what, let me just tack on that prayer and that'll, that'll keep me going. And then when you see those— I'm going to use you as an example, but when you start seeing like the fruits of that prayer in people's lives, it's almost enough to like not have what you've been praying for yet. And it's like, okay, I know this might not be the right time, but like, man, like, Galileo just told me this thing happened. I'm like, I'll tell Pio.

And he's like, oh wow.

And I'm like, yeah, I've been praying for this girl. So, you know, like even that enough is enough.

Saying, keep you going.

And like, that feeds you, and you're like, okay, it's not my time. Like, God's clearly working on like the prayers that I'm praying, you know? So I feel like that's something where it may not be what I need to pray for, but I'm like, oh yeah, like this person mentioned this one thing, so like I can at least pray for that. And like seeing the body flourish is like enough.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, I— when you asked that, it made me think of the last time I was in situation where something was happening and I was just like, God, what are you saying?

What are you saying?

And I'm impatient, you know, I'm like every little sign I'm like, oh God, okay, you're— our marriage. So one morning I was just like, okay, let's have this hard conversation, you know. So we— I haven't told him yet. So we had this— I was like, I think God told me this, like, yeah, you know, and I'm, I'm kind of confident in it. I'm like, I think that's what he told me to do, like this is what we should do. And he like took a minute, he like paused and it was quiet. He's like, I think you need to go back to scripture, like respectfully back around. And I was like, dang, I think he's right. Like once it came out of my mouth, I was like, I was too— I didn't wait for God's answer, you know, I kind of filled in the gap. And he's like, now let's go back to scripture, I think we gotta work that out.

I swear I'm nice.

So that just goes to just to show you that, you know, like you said, Jonathan, you have to leave it.

Yeah.

If you pray and you're still trying to play like detective and put the pieces together yourself, it's still your work. It's, you know, so, um, yeah, when you said that, I was like, well, I just had that moment of like giving it to God, you know, praying it out. And then no, and then my lovely husband's like, no, that's You know, like, prayer is primarily hearing from God.

And once you have that posture, you're just like—

like, every time I pray, I, I like, I just want to know if this is your will.

I'm not even going to pray it like it is because I've made the mistake of praying that it is his will Man, it was this house. I'm never gonna forget this because this was a real lesson for me. We saw this house, it was like on the edge of Homewood. I'm like, God said this our house.

It was 555.

555. Those numbers mean a lot to us. And we're like, this is the house that God wants for us. So what you do when you have that faith? You put earnest money down.

Like $6K.

Man, we lost that $6K.

I'm like, see, when you praying to find out if this is the will of God, he will answer.

And it might cost you.

I found out it's not his will. And it was a $6,000 answered prayer. You know, and I'm just trying to like, before you guys do that, just start.

Is this your will?

Let's start there. Because if you pray the will of God, you pray for things God already wants to give you.

Amen.

Man, I have kids. I have— I want to give them some candy, right? They come up to me, Daddy, can I have some candy? Yeah, I was already going to give it to you. Now you make it feel like it's because they asked. You get what I'm saying? You make— you affirm the fact that they asked, but you knew you already wanted to give. That's God.

Amen.

Yeah, he just wants to affirm the fact that you asking. He wants you to—

that's a $10 pen.

I was about to say, is that 10 cents?

He wants you to keep asking, but he already knows what he wants to give you. So I wrote a couple of things here that I want to share about prayer. Um, prayer is charity. I'm going to keep saying that over and over and over.

You give money, you never ask for anything back when you give.

When you pray, you don't pray to get anything back. You pray, and you can get when you pray, right?

But you don't pray to get.

Another thing that I wrote here is, uh, ask for what God already wants to give you. That's what— that's prayers of alignment. Um, third thing I wrote here is ask for spiritual things. Most of the time when people are not getting answered prayers, because they're praying for material things. I can almost for a fact say that with my full chest, right?

The only things—

and this is gonna, this is gonna be a reality check—

the only things that God promised you is food and clothing.

That's it.

That is it. And it's very sobering because that is a covenant that God established in, in the Garden of Eden.

It started with just food. Clothes got added to it because we sinned. So then God promised us clothing, and he reaffirmed it in Matthew 6 when he says, don't worry about what you're going to eat and don't worry about what you're going to wear. Those are the only two things he teaches you not to worry about. Everything else you're worried about, I promise you, it's not those two things.

Everything else is extra, and we do not like to hear it.

I can feel the room shift. Like, I don't want to give me a car.

It's like, I remember it was like, I think like last year you're saying like when we do ask the Lord for tangible things, like we're asking the Lord for a house or a new job or whatever, a lot of times it's okay to ask for that, right?

But it's like a lot of times it's like self-centered.

And I know you said like if we're asking the Lord for something like a house, that prayer should be in alignment for you.

Better be asking for a house so you can bring people into it.

Yes, you know, like to have Bible studies or, you know, to bring people closer to God.

So is what you're asking for going to glorify God?

Is that only benefiting you?

You're tying it to what he already wants to do. I tell— if you pray things that are tied to souls being saved, God will answer like that.

Amen.

If your prayer— if your prayer is attached to souls being saved—

God, give me this car, 6 seats, so I can bring an extra person to church. I need 300 acres so that I can help people build on top of it churches.

You know the city of Harvey? You know the owner of that was a Christian, and he built that city so that churches can come there without having to pay, right? So I believe it's because he wanted to give God churches.

Now, last thing that I wrote here before we get to, um, is I put 4 variables to prayer.

These are things that you have to kind of like a, uh, a coach. You got to manage these variables.

You got to manage the will of God, you got to manage faith, you got to manage belief, and then you got to manage the enemy. But we're not going to talk about that part because warfare is a whole nother aspect of unanswered prayer that I'm sure we all have. Can you say those again?

The 4 things? You said the will of God, faith, belief, and enemy.

Thank you.

Now I was just gonna say, I don't know how this is related, but I just felt like compelled to share it out. But I think prayer can be one of the biggest like intro barriers for people that are either like finding their faith again or finding it for the first time, because I think a lot of people go into prayer with an expectation and they don't truly understand what God's will means, because I see God's will not as he allows things to happen, doesn't allow things to happen, he lets things slide, or he doesn't let things slide. I think whenever I pray for something and whenever, you know, believers pray in something, I think God is checking in with their path, seeing if it aligns, and then moving forward accordingly. And I think of like my walk with God, because it's been so crazy throughout my life, I think of it literally as a walk, and I think my role in that is to continue that path with him. But then on the flip side, I had a conversation with my sister who's not a believer, but we both grew up in the church, and she was saying, how does free will fit into this? Like, are we just all forced to be continued onto this path? But I think deviations from those paths, being able to walk off that path for a while, is our free will. And what we do with that time is always going to lead us back to that same path. A deviation from that and moving off of that path doesn't mean that you're doomed, it doesn't mean that you're done for, or doesn't even mean that you're doing the wrong thing sometimes. Sometimes there's a different path that you take, but knowing that it always comes back to the main road and always leads you back to God is something that brings me comfort, I think. And then also when I think about my prayer and praying for the tangible, and things may not be working out how you expected them to work out or something like that, I, whenever I finish praying, I usually do it at night, and it's because I can go to bed and I can wake up in the morning and there's a new day. And to me, that's proof that God is never leaving and God's will is never going to be gone. The fact that there's another day, the fact that we all get together next week, the fact that we all do things, you know, continuously. I don't really have a point. I just like want to think it's— I think it's just interesting because I can't deny God's existence or God's power or God's will because we wake up tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Yeah, because the world keeps spinning. There's the fact that everything feels like it's burning and everything feels like it's horrible and everything feels like it's against you. You wake up the next day and you do with that day whatever is in God's will for you. And so like, I just think that that makes all of this, despite everything, undeniable. Like, the world that we live in.

Yeah.

So I'm so happy that like I feel like there's a prayer revival happening. Amen. And it all comes back to— I think you said this during our Bible study, Become Alive, about how we just need to teach people about prayer, you know, because the disciples were taught to pray. And I feel like the world has made prayer seem like it's something you inherit and not something you to observe, right? It's just like prayer is just like make a wish with on your birthday. That's prayer. This is like we've made prayers wishes and wishes prayers, and it's just like we need to untangle the two because God is not a magician.

He's not a genius.

He's not gonna just grant you your heart's desire regardless of how many people have used that scripture.

I think also people make it that way because it gives them somebody to blame if it doesn't work out.

That's true.

And it gives them a way out if they're already denying that he's not all-powerful. And if they go into this saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wish for something, and then my wish wasn't granted, they can just use God as a scapegoat and proceed.

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh man, I'm debating how I'm gonna pack that or not.

But before you, before you go, I was gonna allude to that, I'm saying, like, a lot of times we pray for stuff and we know that God is good. We know that, you know, he promises that whatever he's starting us, he's gonna see the completion. But sometimes how we expect it to come in the form of a yes is like instant success. Yeah, if you look at Paul, Paul wanted to go to Jerusalem so bad, but he kept getting detoured. He kept getting put in different— and our coaches always say, like, keep your head where your feet are. When he was in those cities, he was still able to get churches in order, send epistles. He was still doing stuff to honor God and to further the gospel. He eventually got to Jerusalem, but it didn't come in the way that he looked. So we shouldn't be afraid of resistance or adversity. We should be able to distinguish like what that resistance is and adversity, because sometimes when you get near that path to what it takes to get there, it's going to be little mini steps to prep you for whatever you are praying for. So it may seem like resistance, or it's like, oh, I'm not getting my prayers answered. But God is like, nah, let me take some of this out of you. Yeah, let me put this in you. Let me— why are you on the long way? Let me help you carry this person with you, because this person that you're gonna need to go this way, and y'all conversations and how y'all love on each other, it's gonna equip them and build them up. You get to the next stage, all right, now let me unpack this, let me add this, let me equip you with this, going to be prepared with this. So it's like a constant prep stage, or you helping somebody else along the way, somebody helping you, and then you get there and you can fully appreciate the things that God has given you, and you can steward it the way that he intended to. Versus if in month 1 I'm praying for this, I'm believing, all right, I don't get it, or let's say I do get it but I'm not prepared to steward it, and then I don't handle it right. Now, like I gave y'all the example when I was playing ball, I got that way too early. And I was— I went into it like, I'm about to be a minister on, on the side, as opposed to I'm a minister that, that hoop.

Yeah.

And then basketball became an idol for me. I started just trying to like get better, working myself, meet coaches. I'm walking with the other team, talking to them, like, let me get your number because I know so-and-so about to get cut. I started making it way too big of a thing where I should have been— I had like a little ministry group and I was like, hey, uh, this canceled because I gotta go practice with so-and-so, or like, you know, I gotta go do this. And I lost sight— if I had done that now, I'd have been like, all right, cool, if I get that, then perfect, but I gotta be here because I got 8 girls, 8 boys that really want to know who God is and they're not preaching the gospel out here. And like, I regret that to this day because I was doing a little bit, but I wasn't completely surrendered to it. And I love basketball, and like that— not led dreams, I'm not familiar— but like that, that typical, I gotta make it and I gotta get out here, I gotta go move— I let that like deter me away from like really serving God and being present in the moment and then letting him take me there gradually. Yeah, like, don't be deterred by temporary note that can set you up for like a permanent yes in the future.

Real short, I think a sobering reality that should position sometimes our posture in prayer— we should go before his throne with boldness, but also we have to balance that with humility because the truth of the matter is sometimes we're not mature enough for what we're asking for. And it is the love and the mercy of God that he will spend the time forming us into the, the person who is ready to receive what he's promised. And that's why I love Exodus, because that entire process of him taking and delivering them from Egypt, he was taking them on a detox. He was like, I gotta get this out of you, I gotta get this out of you.

A whole generation died.

A whole generation couldn't even the promised land. And there's a big element that sometimes we have to be sober-minded and realize, like, I just might not be who I need to be yet. And I think that switches the prayer to, you know, Lord, make me into whoever I need to be to get all of the promises that you have for me.

Yeah.

And sometimes I ain't even go to sleep on that one. That's how I learned how to start praying in the ways that I said that I pray now, you know what I mean? I feel like in my life I arrived at some things earlier, you know what I mean? And if I look at it now, God was showing me, this is what you want, this is where— this is the trajectory that you wanted to be on. I'm gonna take you there, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna let you know it ain't all that it's cut out to be, so that you can go ahead and surrender to my will and what I want to do through you. I, I would never imagine where I am right now, you know what I mean? And my story is crazy. Yeah, different story for another day. But to his point, to Brittany's point, we, we do have to realize that oftentimes we are not ready. If I look at some of the things that I probably would have expected or what was on my trajectory and my timeline for by now, I just turned 40. I ain't got no kids, I'm not married. I'm— when I say I'm so cool with that, it's a lot of— it's a couple different factors. But one of the things is I can look back on my life, I've had opportunities to be married, but even when I wasn't in my best place with God, I was just like, this, this ain't gonna work. Like, I'm gonna ruin this situation because I knew what was in me. Yeah, you know what I mean? I knew the predispositions because of where I come from, bloodlines and things like that. And so I am more than— I'm beyond grateful now for the things that God didn't allow me to get into, that I thought, the places where I thought I would be or should be, because I can map it out and go down the line and tell you at different points, you know what I mean, at different times, what, what, what needed to get in me, what he needed to work in me, and what he needed to work out of me.

Yeah, I don't think we I don't think many of us are prepared enough for not getting the answer as we are for getting the answer too. Yeah, you know, I just feel like sometimes people don't get stuff and they just get like, it's just their faith just get shipwrecked. And the other extreme of it, like, I've been there.

Like, God has been—

I've figured a lot of stuff out early in life, figured a lot of stuff. Like, God took me to the highest mountains, he took me to Wall Street, and I'm just like, oh, this is trash.

And then when I tell people, they don't believe me.

They're just like, oh, you're only saying this because you already tasted it. Ain't partly true, right? Like, being honest is just like, yeah, I can tell you, like, you know, having all the money doesn't really mean anything. It's similar to Solomon.

It's like, you're either going to be on the Solomon spectrum or the Job spectrum. God's going to put you on one of those courses. He's either going to take everything away from you and show you God is still good. He's going to give you everything and show you God is still good. No matter what side of this spectrum you're on, God is still good.

So yeah, make prayer your answer prayer, right? If you pray and the ability to pray is an answered prayer, you—

I promise you, you'll be praying a lot.

Yes.

Um, so for some reason this is continuing to come to my line about how you can't lie to the Holy Spirit, even if you're lying to yourself. So when you pray for things with self-ascendancy, he always knows. Um, so I think you have to be careful because sometimes I think he can give you things and you might be ready for it, but the problem is you didn't stay close to him once you've got it. So you're not— yeah, so you get your thing and then you stop praying. And I think why Paul is always encouraging us and Peter is always encouraging us to pray relentlessly is because you could even look at Israel. They got to the promised land and then they stopped praying, they stopped communing with God. And once you sever that relationship you're opening up yourself to not only hurt yourself but hurt others in the process, especially in ministry, since we're talking about how we want all the nations to hear and everybody to come to know who God is. If we're not continuously staying connected to the hip to him, we have the opportunity to hurt a lot of people So it's super important for us to not only pray earnestly in the Spirit, but also to never cease praying earnestly in the Spirit. And every time Jesus prays, he's praying outwardly. So like, I think when we pray, we have to remind ourselves that it has to stay outward, because if we go inward, that's where we fall to. I think about like sin is crouching at the door, so I'm just constantly thinking.

Yeah, I keep thinking, um, I'm gonna keep that to myself.

Um, prayer.

I don't think it can ever be overstated. I honestly can confess the thing that is keeping me, this ministry, and my family together is the prayer jumps. Guaranteed. There's an altar that has been kept constant since August. The thing I love about this hour of prayer, whether you show up or not, prayer continues. We are not waiting for nobody.

You're not showing up, that's you.

You, that's cool.

But the prayer, it continues. And I think that posture, that posture of like, man ought to always pray and not faint.

Pray without ceasing.

What I want to do now is, I think we talked about the first 10 chapters, 10 verses. Um, the first 10 verses, which is summarized: you pray, miracles happen. All agree, right? The next part of this is— I think we're only going to talk about all the way from 11 to 16, and then that's what we're going to wrap up, um, so we can pray.

Now, the—

this part of the text is very interesting to me.

Because it goes into human worship, idolatry of the ones who perform the miracle and not elevating the God who done it through them.

What happens when God does something for you and how you deflect the glory? Like, you deflect, you say You think I can?

Should I say this?

I feel like anybody that has really seen the power of God would never come close to taking credit for it. People are taking credit because secretly it was them that did it. And because it was you that did it, it's not really power, right? It's not a miracle. You can explain it. There are some people that like, Jesus, why are you putting me in this spot? They will like investigate their members, and then when they come to church, they'll be like, you got a sister named Carrie? Meanwhile, they were just on their Facebook page.

Real life, real life.

They're like, hey, this is what we're gonna do in service, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna make sure that you get some money, but we're gonna plan it ahead of time because we already know who we're gonna give the money to. Or it's gonna be like, hey, I've seen videos of the same person being healed of the same thing 4 different churches.

So when you see a real-life miracle, your response—

there's no way this could have been anybody but God.

There's absolutely no way.

I like to call our relationship a miracle.

I'm like, there's no way it could have been anything but that.

We've seen through enough, we've been through enough, and too much has happened. And we're just like, it's only a miracle if only God can take the credit for it.

That's right.

And many a times you see situations where even us, we secretly want to share credit with God. And I want to caution us You know, I know this is talking about other people kind of idolizing Peter and John, but I want to have that conversation. But I also want to make sure that like we don't idolize ourselves.

Man, I prayed 12 hours and then God did it.

Just like, yeah, you're kind of idolizing yourself here.

You're making it about you.

And this is the part of the walk where I just want to to be very, very, very, very cautious of it. Like, if you decide to take the glory, that means God's gonna give you all the blame too.

You said what? What do you think is the root of that? Because sometimes it's easy for it to be impulsive for you to pray for somebody, they get the breakthrough, and then like you're telling people, or you might tell social media, you're like, I prayed for that, and the Lord answered, but the root of it is, I prayed. Like, what do you think is like the core that produces that?

I can tell you. No one will admit it, but everyone wants to be God. And that's why there's issues with morality, because everyone's always saying God wouldn't do that.

I don't believe God would do that, or this is what it is.

Everybody's trying to play God. And it's all of us. There's not a single one of us that doesn't. And that's why it's called surrender, is because you have a throne in you. We are gods. That's what God says. But you shall have no other gods before me. That's why to give up yourself is to give up your godhood, your throne. So if you're not willing to give that up, any ounce of it, if you leave one ounce of who you are that is not holy, that is sinful, and you're trying to hold on to that thing that he won't bless, he won't sit on that throne. So now there's a partial surrender. That partial surrender will send you to hell. There is no— and that's the hard reality, is that the road is very narrow.

Yeah.

And even in this room, you can look around and see Majority is not going to make it. And that is not a damnation. It is just a fact.

So we are talking about Holy Reverend.

You cannot approach. It is not even about what you think. You cannot think about approaching the throne. God's holiness, everything, this whole drama is all to protect us from Him. He is so holy that nothing unholy can stand in His presence.

And that's why we need the blood of Jesus.

That's the only way we can approach it.

Amen.

And unless you're surrounded— but I'm saying it's got to be a total execution. And if any— if you can take anything away from this now, is nothing is promised. The point of all of this is not to build a life here or stay comfortable here. If you're doing that, I don't know however many of you have done the ChatGPT thing where you You say, ChatGPT, give me a picture or caricature of my life. Show me what it looks like. I couldn't believe all the people who claim Christ yet no God involved in any of their lives. And so that's what I was saying. I was going to say, if you don't desire to be with him now, there's no— you're not going to want to be with him in heaven. So whatever it is, it is about Literally running to the cross because the only way to heaven is death. And so if you are not dying every single day, you're trying to hang on to a single ounce of you, I'm sorry, but when that time comes, that door closes. That's it. His mercy is forever, but your unearned, it ends. Take it very seriously.

Comes down to, um, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life, I think. And that pride thing is so real, man. I don't think we talk about it enough. Um, one of the things that I was going to say was like when Tony was talking about, you know, he saw those caricatures and seeing Christ You know, maybe I'm too judgy, but like when those replays be coming out from like Spotify and Apple Music and I don't see no gospel music, I'll be judging y'all.

I'm honest, I'll be judging y'all. Ain't not a single, not one, not one gospel song. I'm judging you, for real. Like, you're a believer, I can judge you.

The unbelievers, I expect it. You got a Bible verse in your bio and for 365 days.

Come on.

Wow.

Not even soaking worship, like, you know, you could play that for hours, like, um, but yeah, it really—

and I closed my Bible because I feel like we're about to pray that second part of this text out, which is to crucify your flesh. Like, and I thank God for my wife because, well, you, you don't, you don't know, she's my pride protector. I swear, she's my pride protector. She, she lets me know when something is creeping in. Wow. She lets me know. She lets me know if it's creeping in my sermons. She lets me know if it's creeping in my conduct. She lets me know if I'm slipping in my behavior in our relationship. Like, I wish people had those around them that will hold them accountable, and I really want that to be us. Amen. Like, you don't know what pride will do, but the Bible says that like pride comes before the Bible says that he resists the proud.

Do you think about— you don't even— you trying to pray and God is resisting you? God is resisting you. Who's going to answer your prayer then? He's literally, he's literally pushing you because he can't accept your You and him is incompatible. He has to be God all by himself. You can't help him. You can't help him be God. You can't add anything to him.

You can't take anything away from him.

And what your flesh wants to do, it wants to make you think that you contributed to the life you live in. You, huh, you contributed to the life that you live in. Let God snatch that air out your lung right now. Bro, let your— what's your 401k going to do then? You contributed to this life you living. We, we are living on pure mercy right now. The Bible says by his mercies we are not consumed. I thank God I'm living in the New Covenant, bro.

I, I thank God.

Had this been the Old Testament, it wouldn't even be enough people here to have Bible study. We would not, bro.

This was the Old Testament. We had a Bible study. Hey, bro, we would not have met the quota, the quorum.

Think about how many—

let's just think about Exodus, bro.

I'm talking about if you, if you made it from Mount Sinai when they made that golden calf, you have to survive the 40 years You know how many people died to get the, the idol out of the Egyptians? It was a 40-year process of killing flesh, real life human flesh, up to the point where the only flesh that can satisfy the wrath of God was Jesus Christ himself. 40 years in the wilderness of mother dying, son dying, children dying because the idols inside of them refused to die.

You know, the stubbornness of Pharaoh in Egypt, it was inside the Israelites too.

Moses was sending plague after plague Warning after warning, they couldn't let go of their idols until Pharaoh watched all his sons die. And you know what?

He still pursued them. Everybody wants to be Moses in the story, don't know that Pharaoh is inside of you too.

Yeah, everybody want to be the hero.

Man, Jesus didn't die for any heroes.

Come on, come on.

Everybody wants to be the hero of the story. There can only be one hero, the one who knew no sin but became sin, thank you, Lord, that we might become the righteousness of God.

Until you realize how much flesh needed to die for you to stand here, you you won't pray.

Oh yeah.

How much flesh? Of the 12 plus 1 disciples, 10 of them died martyred. Peter crucified upside down because he said, I'm not worthy of being crucified in the same way as my Savior. Put me upside down.

And all we telling people is to pray for 30 minutes a day.

You can't even kill that part of your flesh. I'm sorry, but it's unacceptable. We're not even asking you to become a martyr.

We're asking you to pay homage to the people that died for us to have this text and pray for somebody else.

We're asking you to pay homage to the ones who came before us and share the gospel. What are we really asking from each other right now? What are we really asking? Is anything too good to give up for God? Man, I'm sorry I'm talking too much, but I gotta get this off my chest, man.

I read my Bible and I see people who left everything, and I look at the church and I see people who want everything. It don't make sense to me.

Like, my wife can bear me witness, at the drop of a dime, I will sell everything. And she knows this. We're always 12-hour process away of selling everything. She knows it can happen at any moment.

She honestly— because what is it?

What are we doing here? Can we take any of it to heaven with us? No. Like, check your heart.

What have you been praying for? I, I—

if God had granted me insight into the prayer requests of everybody in this room and we put it on the screen right now, would you be embarrassed?

We're just putting it up right here because that's what they do in heaven. They broadcasted your prayer points. Read Revelation. The Bible says the prayers of the righteous is like incense in a golden bowl in the heavens. They're sitting around your prayers. What do you want? They read it. The angels and the elders, all in their holiness, they take time and they read your prayers.

God, I need a new, new fancy BMW. They telegraphing our request in heaven, and they like, all right y'all, let's go hear what God's children are praying for today. Open it.

Louis Vuitton bag.

You know how merciful God is? He'll give it to you anyway.

Yes.

I want a 200% pay increase. Knowing that you're not going to tithe or give from that increase, he'll give it to you anyway. I want a husband and they got to be 6 feet tall.

Thank God we 6 feet, right?

I feel like I have to make sure we liven up a little bit.

This stuff is heavy, man. This stuff keeps me up. It keeps me up.

There was one time— let me back up right here. We was in Atlanta and we was in the mall and I just started crying. I just started weeping. We in like a cafeteria across from the Starbucks and I just kept thinking about the church and I kept thinking about like how much things would change if our prayers changed. And I just started to weep because for a minute I was like, no way people gonna let go of their idols. Is it wrong to want nice things? Absolutely not, as long as that's what God wants. That's the part we all got to wrestle with. How they just—

she was very vulnerable.

She said that she's 40, no husband, no children, and she says, if that's the will of God, I'm here. God's will could very well be the exact opposite of what you want for yourself.

Are you willing to kill that part of your life?

Amen. You're willing to let that go if it pleases the Father? If I never get another promotion, if I never graduate, Jesus, I never get married, but I hear, well done, my good and faithful servant, it was worth it.

Yeah.

Righteous Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, we bring our idols before you, our pride, our lusts, our desires, and we burn them all.

We refuse to be our own gods. We refuse to believe we know more than you.

We're asking that you purify our hearts, that we may receive all that you have to offer. Lord, how much of you are we missing out on? How much of you are we yet to see? How much of your love is still available if we can stop loving ourselves so much? Lord, we repent. I repent. I repent. I turn away from anything that does not look like you. I turn off anything that does not sound like you. Some of y'all need to repent from the music you listen to. So we'll give you a moment. It don't sound like hell. It don't sound like mercy. It don't sound like grace. It don't sound like favor. It don't sound like peace. You gotta burn it down. Babylon is alive. Some of y'all need to repent from what you watch. It's okay. He is merciful. He gives you chance after chance after chance after chance after chance.

Because his blood is available.

Take advantage. This is a holy moment. For some people, your relationships have become idols. You want to please your partner more than you want to please God, man. You're so career-driven, you can't imagine if God would tell you to do ministry full-time.

Thank you.

Burn it all down. Burn it all down, Lord. Kill what is left in me. Refine me. Make me into the person that can hear well done. I want to please you, man. The Lord is ready to to put power inside of somebody. And the first display of God's power is him overthrowing your idols. Is he powerful enough to change your desires? Jesus, if God is powerful enough to change your desires, he can change your family. Can you just offer it all to God? And if you think that you're exempt, I'm telling you right now, you're prideful. Less of me.

Stop. There's no sacrifice without the blood.

And I can't get past this moment. In Jesus' name we pray. Acts chapter 3 and verse 26. Scripture says, scripture reads, to you first, God having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you. You about to— this is, this is what the blessing is. This is blessing, to bless you. And turning away every one of you from your iniquities. Does that fit your description of blessing? Man, sometimes I feel like we read these things in the Bible and it's almost like we forget they're there. Blessing from Jesus is to turn you away from your sin. Think about that for a moment.

So when you say, 'Lord, bless me,' do you know what you're praying?

And I really believe that the Lord wants to bless you, but I'm afraid it may not look like the blessing you think you deserve. Well, study Acts 3. To you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you How is Jesus blessing them?

Turning them away from their iniquity.

Turning away every one of you. From your iniquities.

Turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

Turning away every one of you from your iniquities. My Bible says Jesus does the turning.

Some of y'all think it's by your power. You think you got so much discipline, you got so much self-control, I'm here to tell you, self-control will fail you, but Jesus never will.

So we just pray the prayer, and you feel like you might still be struggling with these things after here, this is when we give it to God. And I want you to ask the Lord, turn me away from all of that. Can you pray that prayer?

This is when you agree with God.

It's a, it's a two-part equation.

Peter wanted to heal, the lame man wanted to be healed. You want to turn away from your sin, and Jesus wants to turn you away. There's going to be an agreement. There's going to be an agreement. You want to turn, Jesus wants to turn, there's going to be an agreement.

There's going to be an agreement.

You don't want to be angry, God does not want you to be angry. You don't want to be lustful. God does not want you to be lustful. There's an agreement happening. You don't want to be anxious. God does not want you to be anxious. You got to believe that God does not want it for for you too. You don't want to be wasteful. God does not want you to be wasteful. You don't want to lack faith. God does not want you to lack faith. You don't want to be afraid. God does not want you to be afraid. The power of agreement. I disagree with every idol in this room. I disagree with every altar. I disagree with every negative thoughts, every negative mindset. We break agreement from it in the name of Jesus. We agree with what is true. We agree with what is pure. We agree with what is holy. We agree with what is righteous. We agree with what is good in the name of Jesus. We agree with heaven's will for us. We agree with kingdom come. The last part of this prayer is you begin to agree with what you want to see in your life now. Where do you want to be in 30 days from now? Can you begin to confess and agree with it? I agree that my prayer life will be better. I agree that my marriage will be better. I agree that I will be more consecrated, more available to the Lord for his bidding. I agree that I will hear from him more clearly. I agree that the gifts will flow through my life. I agree that I will not just have gifts, but I will have fruits. I agree that my life will be pleasing to God. I agree that I will be used to make unbelievers become believers. I agree that I will be the light of the world, a city set upon a hill that can't be hidden. I agree that I'll be the salt of the earth that will not lose its saltiness. I agree that I will have life and life more abundantly. I agree with what this Bible says. I agree with the word of God for my life in this season, that I will lack no good thing. I agree with the prophecy spoken over my life that helpers will come. I agree.

I agree that he would never leave me nor forsake me, nor leave me an orphan.

I agree that I will never see the righteous forsaken or my children beg for bread. I agree that this marriage that God has put together will not be put asunder. I agree with the word of God. I agree that if His people that are called by his name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, that he will hear from heaven and he will heal your land. I agree that whomever the Son of Man sets free is free. I agree with the word of God.

So Lord God, we say thank you. Thank you, Lord. We agree with you. You know what scripture says? When two or three are gathered together in agreement You know, the only two that matters is you and Jesus.

That two or three does not mean you need any man.

That witness was established so that when God is with you and you two agree, then the truth is established right then and now. It's not a quorum for a church in a living room.

Is that everywhere you walk and you agree with God the truth is established. So I agree with the Holy Spirit inside of me right now, and I establish this truth that I will live and not die. I agree with the Holy Spirit inside of me and my brothers and sisters here in this room that we will be salt and light in the name of Jesus. Lord God, we thank you.

Thank you.

We bless you, Father. Take the glory, take the honor, take the adoration. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forevermore, until Christ comes. And the church said, amen. Amen. Um, I think I just have a few things to share. Um, number one is the prayer journal. And I know a lot of people don't know what it is, but we've agreed that we're going to pray every day. So we pray at 6:30 in the morning and we pray at 10 PM every night. If anybody has been blessed by those prayer rooms, can you just give God some praise real quick?

Thank you, Lord.

It's been an absolute blessing. So I would just encourage you, there's faith that you contribute to the altar. When they were building altars in the Old Testament, you had to bring your own sacrifice. Scripture even says if you can't even afford it, bring a turtledove.

I feel like we all can afford to pray.

I really believe that. So I want to encourage y'all to pray, and if those hours are inconvenient for you, start your own prayer group.

You doing two of these?

Yeah, any idea you come to me with, just know it's gonna be the first one. So, uh, that's the prayer part.

Worship.

Well, these are 3 pillars.

We're going to be worshiping on February 28th, um, sponsored by Taylor and Indian Avenue Pentecostal Church of God. I really believe that's gonna be a night of fire. And then the day before, on the 27th, 27th, we're going to be doing, um, a nationwide prayer, a prayer for the nation on the 27th.

So is that associated with—

yes.

Okay.

Yep, that's gonna be the day before.

And I'm also— if anybody wants to learn about intercession and like the different realms of prayer, I'm teaching this Saturday at 2 o'clock, and the church address is 3520 South Indiana.

Do you have flyers for those?

Like, I drop it—

you share with me, I'll drop it in the group. If everyone— if anyone's not in the group and want to join, yeah, let's share them.

There's the prayer gym and then there's the one for just the tech stuff.

Yeah, it's in the chat. Okay, yeah, it has all three.

I did the worship, right? But you're going to share the—

the—

yes, I'll share this.

So I want to share really quick about this because I got to meet Bishop Moore. Taylor coordinated me to meet the pastor of the church, and we met for about an hour, and I just felt the presence of God so, so heavy in that room. And I believe that his heart— I wish people understood what is happening, you know. And he was straight up, he said, I want to meet you because I want to guard my sheep. Well, told me straight up like that to my face. I said, come on, let's talk. So we talked a little bit of theology, we talked a little bit of life, we talked a little bit about a lot of, a lot of stuff.

Anybody okay over there?

We need some prayers. Man, there are far few men of God that I've met that really just struck me in the way that he did. Praise God. Um, like, he's legit. Like, he's legit. So for him to be willing to collaborate with little old us after pastoring for 40-plus years in a church that's 91 years old and offering his church to us like this, it can only be the hand of God. Yes, honestly. So I really believe, and I wrote a post about each of your altars, I love all of our churches. That church is 91 years old.

I prayed in that church and I was like, it feels like there's been 91 years of prayer here.

I really believe that altars matter. How long they've been around matters too.

You think it's easy to build an altar that lasts for 91 years?

Yeah.

So it's an honor to really engage with them, and I'm coming for me.

If anybody wants to join, feel free.

We're gonna be praying, we're gonna be worshiping. Amen. Last part of our pillars, the Harmony, which is our Bible study. Uh, I believe we're going to be back in the studio next week, so we'll be back in the, in the studio at 325 East Hoyne—

North Hoyne.

We'll be back there next week. Um, what else I'm supposed to have a script, but I'm so bad at this.

I gave him a script today, guys.

Follow our social media.

Okay, please do that. Engage. Buy our merch. We got hats in the car.

Um, oh, and this one's very important.

These hats.

Yeah, these hats.

If you want this hat, we got you.

Well, we don't got all of you because we only got like 7 left, but we got 7 of you. In the name of Jesus. Um, the last thing I wanted to share, because it's been on my heart, and the reason that we exist is to strengthen the local church. Amen. So it's, it's almost non-negotiable that everybody here must be plugged into a local church, honestly. And if you're not plugged into a local church, please come find me. Yeah, please come find me. We will get you plugged into a local church. And the reason being is My life's mission is to strengthen the local church. Like, I've been asked a lot of, a lot of, a lot of times when I'm going to start a church, and I honestly don't believe God need any more churches. You know, people disagree with this, and they're very welcome. I feel like you need more churches that believe.

Yeah, right.

So I just want to dedicate until the Lord tells me otherwise to just help other churches. So if your local church needs anything, like, any way that I can— this is really why we're working with, um, we need a lot of Indian Avenue, you know, because like I really just want to— I just, I just love the local church, man. It's like we got a lot of these mega churches, these pastors that have been pioneering. Like my friend Pastor said, it's a lot harder to preach to 2 people than 10,000 people.

Yeah. So these faithful pastors that been preaching to 2 people for 10 years, they need to help y'all.

They are faithful.

I remember we started Bible study, it be me and Christine. It was hard.

What?

She hop on the Zoom in another room and I'll be preaching to her and I'm just like, what are you doing?

That wouldn't have believed it, baby.

She did, man.

God bless this baby.

You know, like, I'm gonna stop talking. But please be plugged into a local church. Please, please, please. I'm plugged into a local church. My church is in Harvey. And I've actually told my pastor that like, I'm gonna amp up some support for even my local church. You know, I spent a lot of time in other houses and I love doing it, but I'm going to dedicate a few months to my local assembly just to help oversee some things.

Yeah.

Um, anything else? Anybody got a word? Anything that you're hearing from God that you want to share? Any encouragement? Even the children, I'd love to hear from them. We've been hearing from them all day. I love to hear their words.

It's been an impartation.

Thank you, Lord. Wonderful host.

Y'all got any final—

before I go to get to y'all, Brittany.

Oh, I was just gonna say, when you, when you were hitting on pride, one thing that the Lord was putting on my heart is like, uh, dethroning like the need to be validated.

So much.

And I think that's something like all of us in our humanity experience. And I think that social media has become the altar where we sacrifice ourselves in return for validation. And I would just allow that to be like an area of pride that we just, you know, meditate on. And if we need to repent, because I see how it divides us, I see how it comes in between friendships where, you know, it's like, oh, you don't like my stuff, so I'm not liking your stuff. It gets so petty, but that is evil when you think about it. And so if we could just be mindful and ask the Lord to deliver us from anything that makes us so self-seeking and that need for validation, I think that he's gonna respond. I know he's gonna respond.

Yeah.

Amen. I just got a 3-day break. I don't know why the Lord told me me to stay off of social media for 3 days. It just happens to be Valentine's Day. But that need for validation happened in our house.

Okay, he hates holidays like that.

I just felt like you was happy when you joined that prayer call.

All the single people was in the prayer jam and here they come. You got them there, Brittany.

What's true?

I was talking about them.

Christine called in, but he in the back. That's right.

Oh man, God help you, Brittany.

Help me too. Awesome. Anything else before we turn it over to our host for tonight? Bible Society, God bless y'all.

Any words for us?

I don't know, man, just, um, I think one of the biggest things I just wanted to add, but I was just enjoying everyone's input when it came to prayer. Um, we're praying in faith. There is nothing else to pray for but to be with him and seek him. That's it, really. He says, uh Hebrews 11:6. Without faith it's impossible to please him. Without faith you cannot even please him on Father's Day. Then he says he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. He didn't say things or whatever else, but what I noticed even as being a father myself, it's something special when your children just want to spend time with you. That's really what he's living for. Because if you spend time with your Father and you're seeking his heart, you get what's in his hand anyway. Amen. That's just what I wanted to leave y'all with. It's all about him, nothing else. And I can tell you now that seeing all his children together, it's making us all smile, you know. So thank God for y'all, for what y'all are doing in your ministry. So that's it. That's it.

That's all I Oh, that's your brother?

You know, I shared with Eric yesterday, I was walking back in downtown here and came across a man who was Christian, was handing out these, literally just this is what he was handing out, Jesus, right? And then he turned the back into some verses. And I stopped and talked to him out of excitement because I'm like, oh, you know, a brother in Christ. And what I felt, what I saw, what was shown to me was this man did not know Jesus. And as I talked to him, he wasn't concerned with having a conversation. It was like I was interrupting him doing this. And nowhere in the Bible does it say to hand out cards. It says preach the gospel to all nations and make disciples of all nations, right? And so that's the part where I struggled with it because I was like, Lord, what is this? Why did you put this in my path, right? And the answer shook me because, you know, we're not supposed to share any of this, right? But I'll just share it for the content. I had already had in my backpack some stuff for a homeless man, whatever, but he happens to be in a tough situation and confessed former Satanist, doesn't really, you know, doesn't know Jesus like that, but what I found myself was sitting there and having more peace about this place I was at than with this man who wasn't a Christian. Really, I mean, if Christ followed. And God revealed that to me. But what shook me was the fact that as soon as I asked that question and the revelation came, it was as if I wept. I couldn't contain it. And it was as if he had brought me into his heart. And what, again, these micro revelations, he doesn't give it to you all at once. It was just overwhelming. But it's that when you look at the patterns of Jesus, he didn't come for the religious. He didn't come for the moral superior person. He came for the sick. He came for the sinner. And that was that. He's actually turned his heart away from those who claim to know him but deny his power. And it breaks his heart. It's not like he's not weeping over it. But he's like, I can't do anything with these people because they claim to know me but don't. And though they think they're out of there going out of almost like obligation doing what they do, he showed me that they're whitewashed tombs, right? They're rotting inside, number one. But they won't listen. They're done. They are cooked. Literally, they are. And that's the part where he then showed me what it means we're not called to be be disciples or apostles. What Jesus says before he departs is, you have earned the right to be called friends. And then he makes it clear, there is really just friends or enemies. We were once enemies. And everything we talked about today, whether it be obedience, whether it be prayer, whether it be faith, it is all a gift. And that's the hard part, I think, was for me to understand that. We try so hard to convince the next person, that you should believe in Christ. But he's saying already, I've already anointed mine. Why are you wasting your time in these debates with these people who don't know me and don't desire to know the true me? They've made up a version of me that's not real, made a logo, made whatever, and called it me. And this idea of belonging to churches, what he's saying, that's the part that makes him bleed. Is that we all belong to these temples that he came to destroy. When we are the living, breathing body of God, that our sole purpose on this earth as of right now is to choose to die, choose crucifixion. The only prayer I pray is that, Lord, give me the strength like Stephen, like all the disciples who willingly— like Peter said, who Peter, who denied him Turned around and said, Lord, I want to be crucified upside down. And that's what he requested, to be crucified upside down. So when you think about what it is that you're praying for, though, in my opinion, the only thing you should be praying for is to desire that death. That's it. Everything else God will do. But even when you think about it, as we're all sitting here, you talk about the presence of God, just stop for a second. You don't stop breathing. We all say Yahweh, we say these things. The name of God is that breath that goes inside and it goes out. It goes in, it goes out. And if he decided for one moment that you weren't worth it, you just evaporate. There would be no memory of you.

You just wouldn't be.

So that's how much he loves you. And the mercy he gives is literally saying, I want you to come home. But that is the only way home. And so this idea of trying to build for a life here He's saying you gotta hate your family. You gotta hate these people more. You gotta, in comparison to the way you love me, it should look like hate. And when you think about what you pray for, pray for anything and everything that keeps you in the presence of God and pray that anything and everything that keeps you out of his presence be burned.

That's it.

Anything here that you're talking about, like, I want, I want— no, the only desire you should have is him. And the only place he is is heaven. And the only way to get to heaven is to die. And that, I mean, I just can't say it enough. You are given a mercy because there is somebody out there, and it is not going to be in a church, I can promise you that. It is going to be in the places where Jesus was, where the sinners were, where the religious looked at him and said, what are you doing with these people? If you're not being looked at that way and you're being accepted by your Christian group and you're saying comfortable and everybody's just eating, being merry. That's what he says. It's like in the days of Noah, people would be drinking and they were acting like nothing, and destruction came. And then it was like, wait, but Lord, Lord, I never knew you. And see, there's two versions of you, of us, right? There's the version he created, the one that he had in his mind before he formed you in your mother's womb, before he laid the foundations of the earth. He knew you, which means he has a book that says, this is you. And when you present yourself as something other than that book that he created, which is the perverted version of what the world did to it, says that's not you. I don't know that version of you. So unless you come clean by the blood of the lamb, I don't know you. And that's the only thing I just, I plead with you that it is that dangerous. Aaron's sons, the first time they went to the temple, Done. He's not playing. The Old Testament is His mercy being revealed so that you know how serious He is about sin. Sin comes from a Greek word in archery that means to miss the mark. Repent, Hebrew means to cross over. Repent literally means you're going one way and you're going to go 180 degrees the opposite way. Same thing with gravity. Gravity is basically pulling you down. That's what sin does. God wants to lift you up. Sin wants to pull you down. All right, so that— I just can't emphasize it enough.

This is that—

that your lives are that serious. Sin is that serious to a holy God. If you're— whatever it is, ask him to reveal those things to you, not as like, I can do. No, no, Lord, apart from you I can do nothing. Not even this, have a relationship with you, not even pray, nothing. I cannot breathe, I cannot be. And that's what it means to be a child of God, is to return to that breath, to that source. Because guess what? When you get to heaven, it's going to be the same thing. The body should look like what heaven looks like, which is that we get to sit on the throne with Yahweh, with the Father. And in that breath, we get to go out and still create, but we always come back to family. And that's how you should look at the family of Christ, is your charging station. Look at these phones, they're all here for what? They're all being charged so that you can go out and use it. You are— if you're— all you're doing is going to your church to get stuff and not to give, you're going there to actually get replenished so that you can go out into the go out in the world and share the love. But no one's going to come to the love of Christ if there's not love in you. And I'm sorry, but if you're praying in tongues and there's not an interpreter in the room, you're going to keep people away from the faith because they don't get it. We're not meant to be some abstract theology. We are meant to show the love of Christ to those who have not experience, period. That's why he sat with his enemies, with our enemies.

That's why we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, because it means going out, right?

What credit is it to you if you invite people who can invite you back into your house? The credit is invite those who cannot repay you, right? So it's a belabored point, but I just— like I said, his heart is so broken is so broken because he is a just God and he will not back down from his word for you, for me, for anybody. You're good enough. Your good is not good enough.

Only his blood is perfect. So, amen.

That's true.

Thank you guys. And this is your home. So for whatever it is, for whatever ministry is for to you, Vibe Society is just a name to be shiny, to be— to bring people to something nice because that's what they want. And so we give whatever it is that God says to do to bring his people home. And I can't say enough about Muslims, and we'll talk about this later too because I have a whole thing to talk about, but they're coming to kill you. I mean, I hope you know this. That is their number one agenda. That is the only thing. But even through that fear, if you're not seeing it, I'm like, it's happening. Like, I'm sorry, guys, but there's gonna be somebody— I was assaulted on the street with Eric. Random guy comes up to me out of nowhere. I'm smiling. The presence of God is— we're here literally praying, doing all these things, and this man attacks me out of nowhere, unprovoked. What'd you do? I prayed for him. Like, it's crazy because not only when I say the power of Christ is in you, he came at me full force and it was like I just, it was no effort. And then he goes running over the whole thing. But like, I'm telling you, the fact if you're wearing a cross, there's going to be a Muslim coming up to you and believing they're doing in the name of Allah, and it's going to be you, your family, somebody. Like, I'm telling you, it's happening all over the the world. So like, this is your invitation into that. The minute they believe they're doing that— that's why in the Bible it says they will think they are serving God when they kill you.

But guess what? You just got your ticket home.

So that's the posture we need to have. Not of fear, but that perfect love casts out all fear, even in the darkest of those situations. So thank you.

I want to pray, um, and a prayer that I want to pray is, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world, right? I just want to remind us of like the power that we all have. Remember when I started talking about Baal? At the end of the day, we'll see that our God is our God and there is no other. So can we just thank God for today? Can we just bless him that he is the greatest? There's none greater. There's none higher. There's none better.

There's none more mighty.

Lord, we thank you because we won 2,000 years ago. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you.

We thank you.

Because the cross and the blood is still available for each and every one of us. Lord, we say thank you because the mercy seat is still open for each and every one of us to enter. Lord, we say thank you because one with God is a majority. Thank you for the revelation, oh Lord. Thank you for the inspiration and thank you for the discernment. For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forevermore. Until Christ comes and the church said amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Lord.

Oh yeah, office hours for anybody that can't make it.

Yeah.

Hahaha.